Yes, it is official. The first crash and burn rough draft is finished at a little over 50,000 words. Writing the last two chapters was much more emotionally draining than I ever expected. It was also some of the hardest writing I’ve ever done. While trying to create an emotional climax, where I put my main character through the proverbial rack, every two minutes one of my darling children would either scream a babble of nonsense, ask me for something, or climb up my back and snatch away the mouse! Mix in the background noise of PBS Kids and it’s enough to push the sanest person over the edge.
As a reward I’m going out and getting a new book to dive into and taking a few mornings to just read, undisturbed. Next Monday we’ll start the revisions and editing.
My Literary Quest 
Congratulations, Jo! This is a big moment for you, one that was hard fought and won. I wish you all the best with the editing, and hope you find it easier than I do. ))
Congratulations! This is so exciting, I’m so happy for you…:) I’ve only made it to the middle and I think I still have a few months until I can finish the first draft so fingers crossed!
Good luck with the revision and the editing 🙂
Thank you Rik and Lua – editing is going to be much tougher than the rough draft. I now have to face all the little nit picky things issues I skipped over, like naming secondary towns and characters, and adding life. There are dozens if not hundreds of scenes where I know I wimped out and just told what happened instead of showing. It’s time to face the music.
An absolute achievement. Congrats! Explore NaNoWriMo which “forces” you during the month of November to write a 50,000 word novel. Talk about spewing out a load of crap. BUT in the end, you at least have the dough on the board to knead and knead. Editing will be another task, so long as you have watchful and mindful eyes other than your own. Keep at it.
I have looked in to NaNoWriMo and have to admit that I’m very interested but also very intimidated. It was a strenuous effort to get my quota of 5,000 a week and still keep up with my family. For NaNoWriMo I would have to more than double my quota. I’m still considering it, just waiting for when the kids are in school or start sleeping past 7am.
Brilliant. I wish you all the best with this project.
Hi Jodi – thanks for dropping by this morning!
I was just looking at your about page, and was amazed at the similarites. Full time mom, my bsc was in cell and molec biology, violin student, karate student…
I found writing the ending scenes of my wip very emotional as well. I am editing now and every time I get to the end I find it difficult. Not certain if it is because I am at the end (in terms of pages not work), or due to emotions bundled up there. Probably both.
Hope you enjoyed your reward. Great photo by the way!
Wow, that’s just cool. Makes me wonder if there is a particular set of genes that steers people in similar directions. Looks like we’ll have to keep track of one another!
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